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Paul’s Mother
Typewriter
The Royal typewriter symbolizes Paul’s compulsive need to create. When Annie first buys the typewriter, Paul imagines the machine is maliciously grinning at him, and he determines that it “look[s] like trouble.” This feeling…
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Africa
Africa represents the “real” world outside the prison of Annie’s house—and Paul’s increasing distance from that reality. Recalling a childhood visit to the Boston Zoo with his mother, Paul imagines himself as…
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Natural Phenomena
Natural phenomena such as tides and weather symbolize entrapment by forces outside of one’s control. Paul initially associates the pain in his shattered legs with a childhood memory of jagged pilings which are routinely covered…
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